Bomber Kills Dozens in Iraq as Fears of New Violence Rise

Relatives of Haidar Hashim, the Baghdadiya television station cameraman who was killed in a suicide bombing attack in Abu Ghraib, embraced in Baghdad on Tuesday.Credit
Hadi Mizban/Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Two sophisticated suicide bombings, including one on Tuesday in which 33 people died just outside Baghdad, and other recent violence are raising fears that jihadi militants and hard-line Baathists may be renewing their deadly partnership to threaten the largely calm Iraqi capital.

Iraqi military leaders emphasized that it was too early to draw any firm conclusions but noted similarities in the attacks in which more than 60 people were killed since Sunday. While overall violence in Iraq remains the lowest since the American invasion, both recent attacks were against Iraqi soldiers operating with relatively high security, suggesting much planning and coordination.

The worry among some Iraqi military officials is that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a largely homegrown Islamist militant group, and Sunni insurgents loyal to Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party have put aside their differences to destabilize Iraq as the United States military proceeds with its plans to withdraw.

“We have said before that Qaeda was broken, but it was not finished,” said Hadi al-Ameri, the chairman of the Security Committee in the Iraqi Parliament and the leader of the Badr Organization, the former armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite political party.

There is deep infighting among Sunni tribes that united to help subdue the insurgency over the last two years. Thousands of detainees have been released in recent months from American jails. And relatively inexperienced Iraqi forces have now taken the lead in most of the capital area as American forces withdraw to large bases as a first step towards leaving the country.

In the second major suicide bombing in three days, the attack on Tuesday, in which 46 people were wounded, took aim at a group of Iraqi Army officers on their way to a high-profile reconciliation conference on the western outskirts of the capital.

Wild shooting followed the explosion as emergency medical workers dragged limp bodies to ambulances and sheep stumbled through the blood-streaked wreckage to escape the bullets. An investigation is under way to determine whether the shooting after the bombing was an ambush by gunmen or undisciplined gunfire by Iraqi security forces, said Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.

At least 7 of the 33 people killed were Iraqi Army officers.

Witnesses described a scene of confusion and carnage that was also captured on television by a cameraman for the state channel Iraqiya who was wounded in the attack along with a correspondent for the state channel. A correspondent and cameraman for another channel, Baghdadiya, were killed in the blast.

The attack took place as a senior Iraqi security official, accompanied by high ranking army officers, was touring the Abu Ghraib market in an effort to highlight the new security as tribal leaders gathered for a reconciliation meeting nearby.

“I saw some of the corpses were riddled with bullets,” said Abu Jamal al-Zubaie, who lives near the market.

As best he could tell, most of the firing was done by security guards protecting the visiting dignitaries. After the shooting subsided, angry residents rushed to help the wounded and search through the debris. Mr. Zubaie said that “angry locals were pointing at the flesh” of what they said was the bomber, cursing his name. The remains appeared to be those of a male, he said.

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For several months, tribal leaders and Iraqi military officials have been worrying over signs that Qaeda groups might be renewing their alliance with a burgeoning wing of the hard-line Sunni insurgency, called Al Auda. The group’s name means the Return and advocates a return to power of Mr. Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party.

The hard-line Baathist movement announced on its official Web site Tuesday that it would spurn any reconciliation with the new Iraqi government, which it described as “collaborators, spies and traitors.”

Tribal leaders pointed to a spate of recent assassination attempts. Awad al-Harbousi, one of the leaders of the Awakening movement near Taji, north of Baghdad, said gunmen killed one of his Awakening brethren on Sunday and wounded a second one. Some of the attackers now use bicycle bombers instead of car bombs, he said.

“The Iraqi security forces have refused to do anything in our area,” he said. “We have many arrest warrants against people, but because the Americans withdrew from our area the Iraqis are afraid to go after them without air support. We will face a disaster.”

One new dynamic the extremists appear to be trying to exploit is the sharpened rivalries among the tribes after elections in which many competed against one another for provincial council seats, said several security officials.

“The tensions between the tribes mean that instead of being focused on the threat from Al Qaeda, they are focused on their own rivalries,” said Mr. Ameri, the Parliament member.

“All the tribes have been hurt by Al Qaeda,” he added. “And there is no tribe that would want to work with Al Qaeda.

“But they have to be ready to fight Al Qaeda and not one another,” he said.

Although the number of bombings with double-digit casualties has remained at a relatively low level for the past three months — and Baghdad parks and markets are crowded with families — behind the blast walls a growing unease is palpable.

Smaller attacks are more frequent even if they are not lethal. Hardly a day goes by without an assassination attempt using a sticky bomb, a relatively new mode of attack. For the first time in months in Baghdad, there was an attack using a Katyusha rocket. No one was killed but it signaled that insurgents were able again to use the kind of weapon that they had previously relied on to hit distant targets.

American military officials have said recently that they anticipate efforts by Al Qaeda to try to stage high-profile attacks. “We know that Al Qaeda, although greatly reduced in capability and numbers, still is desperate to maintain relevance here in Iraq,” said Maj. Gen. David Perkins, the spokesman for the American military in Baghdad, on Sunday.

Another attack on Tuesday, a suicide car bombing east of Mosul, killed three people and in Kirkuk, a police officer was killed and another officer wounded by an improvised explosive device.

Alissa J. Rubin reported from Baghdad, and Marc Santora from Abu Ghraib. Reporting was contributed by Rod Nordland from New York; Suadad al-Salhy, Mohamed Hussein, Anwar J. Ali and Riyadh Mohammed from Baghdad; and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Falluja.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Another Bomber Strikes Iraq, Igniting Fears of Rise in Violence. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe